Quite a few questions here...

I've played a bit less than 550 normal blind picks and I'm getting really tired of it. I've only managed to find 2 champions that I am actually good with, yet I seem to always run into a lane with an enemy with a strong early game/ good counter to me. Then there are those teams with Tryndamere top, Le Blanc mid, Shaco/ Lee Sin jungle, Caitlyn w/ Support Xin bot that make a point to dominate your early game and shut you down before 30 minutes.

1. I want to try to do draft mode more to avoid people who like to charge to their deaths (I tend to follow to save them assuming they will try to escape, which I guess is stupid). I'm unsure if 2 champions are enough because I will be counter picked anyways...right? (Lulu/ Kogmaw atm).

2. How do people do it? I know I'm not a high elo player for this reason, but when the lane is not in your advantage and you are pushed to the tower still getting harassed, how do you still manage to have good map awareness?

I know if the lane is pushed in our favor I can use clairvoyance whenever it is up and see the enemy jungler/ impending gank 90% of the time. Though when I have the enemies throwing skill shots at the ADC under the turret I need to see the start of the animation to use Lulu shield before the spell makes contact. Same applies if the enemy moves slightly forwards to get in an AA. In these circumstances I barely get a chance to look at the minimap and forget I have clairvoyance or use it randomly on common points for the enemy jungler to move.

3. Lack of ally map awareness in "casual" situations. Here is just an example which is somewhat funny (makes you think you aren't dealing with humans).

Funny/ Sad story- skip paragraph tldr for this section

My team was killing dragon after killing 3 enemies. The enemy Warwick showed up on the minimap with a minion wave close to the inhibitor tower (minions naturally pushed). I recall, pinging Warwick 2 times or so. He managed to kill the tower, so I ping a few more times to direct their view since they were going to bottom tri-bush to perhaps recall. I tried to scare him off with cc/ poke hoping to buy time but he just killed me with his ult and a few hits. After I died, I found out there was a ping limit because I spam targeted him while my allies wandered the enemy jungle killing minions. Someone finally came after we lose an inhibitor, a 2nd turret, and half of a 3rd turret.

I know people are usually not this bad, but how do you get people to listen to you to fill certain objectives when they are obviously the best choice? Ex. Dragon is timed to be up in 1 minute while there is a standstill poke battle at mid lane enemy turret.

4. If you play support how do you survive with GP/10 runes? I usually have to go flat armor/ magic pen reds, flat armor yellows, scaling/ flat magic resist blues, and flat HP quints. Replacing the quints/ yellows with gp/10 makes me super squishy considering how aggressive enemies are in normal blind pick, basically making me a free kill if we are forced to back up in lane.

I know support is always supposed to be in the back, but sometimes you are bursted to oblivion when you try to use Whimsy or Lulu's Ult.

5. How do you do a target ping/ tell a specific person to fall back? I used to know this but I forgot after I left for a few months, though I think it would catch a persons attention better if I know they are going to be ganked.


TL;DR- If it is too long, either don't read or only read one section.

Feedback on the questions would be much appreciated!

I won't respond to each of your questions but I will make a few general statements that help me improve.

You have to at once both use your allies, but also not rely on them too much. You need to look at things they do with a critical eye and don't blindly follow somebody into a losing fight. Solo queue is about making the best of a bad situation just to squeeze out a win. Unless it's a 5v5 at the end of a game then you pretty much have to commit.

Don't expect much from them(and be pleasantly surprised when somebody pulls their weight). Look at every game as a game you have to carry to win. Focus on improving your mistakes and fixing things you do wrong. You also should focus less on "counters" and more on outplaying your opponent, even if they have a supposed "counter" to your champ.

Surviving as a support is about positioning and playing good, really not much more to it and that applies to a lot of champs.

1. I would agree that 2 champions is not enough to do draft pick, although not necessarily because you will get counter picked, but because you never know what your team will play and what the enemy team will play. You want to try to counter the enemy team and support the rest of your team as a whole as much as possible in any role you pick. Being able to only play 2 champions you could have both of them banned, both already being played, or be picking into your own counter in such cases you would be picking into your own loss.

2. There are some ways to help with this, such as smart casting or using the portraits to cast to your own team, but my biggest advice would be practice. Over time you will become accustomed to having that slight peripheral vision on the mini map (and this is a great skill for every lane and every champion).

3. This isn't really a question, but I guess I will offer my 2 pieces of advice.

1 - If you don't verbally harass (or over ping) your teammates they are more likely to listen to you and less likely to mute you.
2 - Try to ping conservatively in a manner that benefits and lets them know what you are telling them, without shoving that awful 'ding' in their ears 20 times.

I am sorry you got stuck with that team at that time, sometimes people have their own idea of what is best and it is hard to do anything to persuade them otherwise as a support. But honestly, I would not engage warwick, you need to be able to judge how much damage he can do to you, and if you can bait or distract him until your team arrives. If they are not coming (really sucks for you) then just help your team, maybe they decided 1 inhibitor is worth getting baron or something else.

4. Pre-game/Items: First off if you are playing with gp/10 runes you really should run flat armor reds. Do you own flat armor quints? I don't usually use them but some people find them invaluable. If you find yourself with this problem alot consider more defensive masteries, more MS, or building Heart of Gold first (Hey you dont need the mana and health regen if you are dying so fast anyways).

In game: Overall though that doesn't sound like your problem, you should be able to survive without any runes or masteries at all. I am not saying don't use them, I am just saying play smart. Do not ever put yourself in range of their harass unless you are going for a kill or save (with your adc), do not ever extend past halfway down the river as a support unless going for a kill (with your adc), and lastly if you can help it you should rarely be full out engaging with your adc without your jungle there. Its hard to judge what global ults may come, where their jungler is, if they could dive if mid came down, and until you see their jungler in top or mid lane and you judge that you are winning in items/levels/poke, don't engage. Of course these are general rules for laning phase, and should be broken at your discretion but the biggest problem I see with supports is wanting to harass and wanting to engage and then you will get caught... You don't need to completely dominate your lane to win, getting greedy will usually cost you, and hey just communicate with your jungle on ward placement and times and work out river or lane ganks and you can dominate.

5. The shortcuts for the "Attack" and "Retreat" pings are 'G' and 'V' respectively. If you mean you want them to see the "Ethri [Lulu] signals you to be careful" then you simply have to press 'V' then click on their champion otherwise it will say "Ethri [Lulu] signals to be careful" or "Ethri [Lulu] signals to fall back from the [whatever] turret". I don't know if you can give a specific person the retreat ping like that without clicking their actual champion, although I believe clicking 'precisely' on them on the minimap should work. Generally I am using the minimap for pings unless "Attack" pinging a specific champion to get my team to focus and help see him.

Hope this helps you. From your questions as a whole it sounds like you should try playing a few other roles, and find other champions you like. Some champions you will be good with some you won't, one thing that may help here is checking the champions "Difficulty" rating. Remember difficulty and IP price do not necessarily reflect on a champions capability.

@Floggle
I agree that I should get out of the habit of trying to save people from impossible situations, though it does get annoying when they start raging (and playing worse) because you simply let them die. I guess helping them doesn't teach them not to dive in....

However, I disagree about the concept of outplaying someone. For example, if your enemies in lane are Caitlyn and Nidalee there are 2x traps to avoid and 2x skillshots to avoid along with long range auto attacks. There are points where outplaying is not enough, especially if you have a slower movement speed and shorter range than your enemy.

As a last note, I try my best to carry the game as support when I can (the position I usually play so bottom lane can be fed without cs wars). It helps a ton if you have a competent teammate that understands the priority of objectives well.

@Luminar
1, 2. I can understand these points fully, I'll have to work on the map periphery and IP then.

3. I usually ping once. If it is fully ignored maybe twice more. In that one example I pinged a ton since he had taken out an inhibitor and 2 turrets, but I think that is rare that people are that bad. I never ever yell at people in game because I know how it is to be on the receiving end. Watching the replays usually explains what has happened to teammates (often acceptable reasons).

4. I have been using flat armor reds for some time. Are you suggesting gp/10 yellows because I usually do (5 flat mana 4 flat armor) yellows, 9 flat armor reds, 9 mr/ lvl blues, 3 flat hp or 3 gp/10 quints. For some reason I tend to run into a lot of mana issues regardless of my play style, leading to a lot more people dying when I run oom trying to save them. Yes, I do need that philo stone mana regen... the fast deaths often happen when I try to stop the ADC from dying when he dives in, which leads to the next part....

Regarding the actual lane play style, I disagree with supports not harassing. Honestly it depends on the support and Lulu is partially made to have some bottom lane harass since she has no sustaining heals. I do agree about the engaging facts, but it seems only natural to protect the ADC if he dives for a low hp enemy, up to a certain point of course.

As for ward placement times, I have yet to see a jungler pay attention to them when I mention it (not that many enemies ward anyways other than Teemo).

5. I'll have to try these out again when I get the time. I wonder if the pings work with portraits.... thanks for the info/ response though!

I'm not saying there aren't counters or that you shouldn't be aware of them. I'm saying that even when you're countered or in a tough situation like the one you describe you can still outplay your opponent and that's what you should focus on.

Since you're wondering about map awareness, are you warding? If you're not, you should be. If you are, you have to train yourself to look with the corner of your eye at that mini map every 5 seconds or so. No two ways about it, it's a skill you have to practice.

Also, try quizzing your ADC in lobby if you're the support. Do they want a kill lane or a sustain lane? Will they poke, or will they not harass at all? If they just want to stand there and farm, take Soraka so you can just stand under the turret and heal them. I've only seen one good Lulu, but our lane was a kill lane because I poke as the carry. Lulu's got nice CC, buffs, and a shield to save butts that need saving which can complement a more aggressive carry player nicely.

Finally, since you have one carry in Kog and one support in Lulu, this is best way I know how to get better as part of the support/carry mini-team:

Want to get better as a support? Take Kog out as the carry. Is the player supporting you making your life easy? Is he warding, zoning out the enemies, harassing a bit, and setting up kills? Study and copy what he's doing. Is the support doing nothing and making your life hard? Don't do what he's doing.

Want to get better as a carry? Take Lulu out as the support. Is the carry harassing, following through on your set-ups, and netting you those sweet assists? Study and copy what he's doing. Does the carry make you want to tear your hair out? Don't do what he's doing.

Additionally, once you know you've got your poo together as either the support or carry, it's real easy to assess whether or not your lane partner is competent. If they're good, then you should naturally be good together. If they're not, maybe you can offer a few tips. Otherwise, you absolve yourself of responsibility for their mistakes, try not to feed, and hope your other lanes do well enough to carry the two of you through mid game.

The way I survive is by remembering that I am squishy, laying back (except when I'm deliberately trying to zone the enemy), and by warding the nearside brush when the first minion wave arrives.

As a rule, lanes push toward my tower, because I'm not auto attacking minions; that's what I want to keep me *safe*. Once the wave is on our side of the river, the main early weakness is the free harass the enemy can get from the brush, so I take that away from them.

You're absolutely right though - if I get caught out of position, I stand about as much chance as a caster creep.

@Lord Puppy Fury
I do ward (1-3 early game and 5+ mid late game every 3 minutes). The map awareness is only an issue when being in constant danger of deadly skill shots, otherwise I use the minimap to figure out most travel routes/ positioning. Sometimes I don't want to look at the minimap every 5 seconds because of all the those times the ADC dives to their death or is hit by a skill shot that could have been canceled by a shield.

I think it is an interesting idea to quiz the ADC before the game (assuming they are chosen fast enough). I'll have to try it some time so we can agree on a play style.

I like your suggestion of studying others playing a role to get better. However, there is a reason I dislike letting others play support... I end up being the ADC buying all the wards because the support doesn't. Honestly, the only times I have seen other supports ward was when they were on the enemy team (not that I give many chances for others to play support on my team). Anyways, when I play Kog'maw I am usually in lane with a Sion or Hecarim that use all their skills to obtain cs (along with auto attacking).

@VoiceOfUnreason
Warding that bush does not prevent harass, it just makes it easier to dodge it. I'll have to work on positioning again, leaving LoL for a few months didn't help matters. You seem to be fairly reasonable for your name btw! ^.^

i recommend you get more champions since half the ones you listed are either banned regularly or are shut down super hard.

Repeat after me: I am a good support and I can't help a carry who won't help themselves.

If it's a strategic tower dive and the carry has demonstrated they know what they're doing, then saving them is awesome. If it's obvious early that the carry doesn't have it together, breathe and let it go. Focus on not feeding or give the enemy too large of an advantage.